And the winner of the $1,500 bounty for Android on the TouchPad is ... Qualcomm?

It appears that a U.S. customer has gotten his hands on an HP TouchPad running Android, courtesy of Qualcomm. Details are a bit sketchy, but we can see an HP TouchPad, still in the protective film, apparently booting and running Froyo. Could this be faked? Certainly anything is possible. But in the video ( see it after the break) you can see and hear the folks holding the unit talk about the TouchPad booting up with Ubuntu of some sort, then springing into life with a plain vanilla Froyo build. We also see the Quic logo, which stands for Qualcomm Innovation Center.

It makes sense that the folks at Qualcomm would be able to get Android (whether natively or running in a chrooted environment via another OS) up and running, they designed the processor in the thing. The real question is why they were working on this, and how did it end up outside the office in the hands of a customer? Hopefully we can find an answer, and it helps all those working on a port of their own. Hit the break for the short video.

It is cool that this is happening...but like a post above, I don't see the point. At least not for the general public. Those of us that read AC, P|C, and the likes will love this and be able to install the port...the general public, not so much. I have a Touchpad, and yes, I poaid full price for it. I also recieved the price match - so my 32GB was $149, just like the rest. I also have a nook Color running HC. I prefer the Touchpad and WebOS by a long ways; regardless of the number of fart apps that are available for it.

Why can't someone watch what the heck they are video taping. How hard can it be to look through the view finder while your recording. The guy behind the camera seems to be either blind or stupid! I hate Half-assed things!

Seriously, I don't see the point in trying to port Android to the Touchpad. If you really want an Android tablet go get one that was specifically designed for that OS, for goodness sake. webOS on its own is truly a credible alternative to Android or iOS. Putting Android on the Touchpad is a waste as you'll not enjoy the benefit of the inductive charging feature but have to bear the burden of a bulkier device due to the built-in induction coil.

Before anyone shouts "troll", I'm a happy owner of both the Touchpad and an Android tablet.

You all missed the point. I'm not saying don't buy the Touchpad for $99. Buy it. $99 or whatever price you think it's worthwhile. But don't buy it mainly with the aim or hope to port Android onto it. If you want an Android device, go get that. Duh.

Tablets thrive on the app store, and I believe most people would agree. So without a solid app store (oh which webOS doesn't have) the tablet is kind of crap. People want apps to play just not Angry Birds, if the webOS wanted to be as solid as some say they needed to help the devs out a lot to get it bolstered.

Truthfully, I wouldn't put Mac OS on anything, but that's me. However, if I were to use Mac OS, that is most definitely the way I would go. If I can get the same product for hundreds of dollars cheaper, then yes. If you disagree with me, then you either find that having to tinker with the product to get it working to be too much of a hassle, or you simply don't understand hardware. Either one is fine, I'm not attacking you. Simply stating that there is no effective difference between a Mac and a PC except the OS. Now, years ago, before Apple used Intel chips, this was not the case, but today, it is.

while it is a credible alternative, the app support is lacking and will be even more obvious as time passes. many would sacrifice webOS for the android market and the chance to ride the honeycomb train at a low price

Did it ever, at one point, make anyone wonder how much all of our current tablets were marked up in price? I mean, I know WEBOS is being killed and all..but still, couldn't our tablets come down in price .. like a few hundred percent? :-D

I wonder if we could all group boycott a popular tablet until it sells dirt cheap :-D

The guess is that it costs a little over $300 to build the 16gb version. So they are losing quite a bit of money on this liquidation. They are just trying to get anything they can from them I suppose. Makes sense.

The only problem is that WebOS is not being killed...the HP hardware division is...or at least is being sold off. I have a feeling within the next couple of days we will be hearing some news about Samsung and WebOS. Wishful thinking....maybe!

You can. There's going to be a second wave of the fire sale. I'm signed up to be notified as soon as they are available again. Soon, they will be.I'm definitely getting one if they are still $99 for the 16GB.

I checked tigerdirect.com this morning about 11am pst and it was listed at full retail. I added one to my shopping cart and then called to ask if they would be dropping their price. The guy said they had no plan to do this. Right after I hung up the price changed right in front of my eyes. I clicked the paypal link and bam, I got one for $99, no tax and $12 for 2 day shipping. 2 hrs later I received an email with a tracking number. Guess it was meant to be. Tried to order another one right after and they were done.

Great idea, the panel's a full tablet running FroYo. Heck, I've used mine for B&N (eReader.com) and Kindle, along with Pulse etc - no GMP, but apart from that it's pretty darned good. Printer/scanner ain't bad neither! ;)

dont hold your breath for honeycomb. the source has never and probably will never be made available. The best STABLE thing we can hope for is some gingerbread love for now, but ICS when it drops in a few months!

However it also shows the SD Card as 28gigs, which means its probably a 32, which could mean its just seeing the internal storage as an SD card...Just cause it isn't removable, doesn't mean it can't been seen as such, or even unmounted.

Yup, even my iPhone 3G showed an SD card when I ran iDroid (Android for the iPhone) on it. You put an .img file of whatever size you wanted your virtual SD card to be on it, and the OS would see it as a mountable/unmountable SD card.

As you say, not that it couldn't be fake, but this is most likely just seeing the internal memory set up to appear as an SD card.

They are good... Notice how it is upside down, while his hands are under the device, and then it is flipped over and already powered on, and how they never actually hit any of the hardware buttons? it's a video playing on the touchpad. they turned it over so you wouldnt see them hit play and have the controls disappear before turning it back over. And I know from my touchpad: that clear plastic film allows you to lightly touch the screen without anything happening. for it to register with the film, you need to press much harder.